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My writing habits have become abysmal lately. I still write every day, because by this point it just feels weird not to. For a week and a half or so, when I was on holiday and barely touching my computer, I didn’t write except the odd quick email or instant message on my phone. But other than those few days, I don’t think I’ve not written for an extended period of time in about a year now – be it parts of an essay, notes, comments on other people’s posts on the web (more thought-out than they should be, maybe, but still), long emails, or fiction. There’s not a day, anymore, where I don’t think about my writing, the work-in-progress I have going on, or allow ideas and sentences to germinate in my brain for further use. I lose the latter more often than not. Another of my bad habits is my inability to commit to keeping a notebook on my ACTUAL PERSON at all times. I have more than one, as well as pens, in my backpack at all times, and that backpack is with me wherever I go. But it’s not the same. Needing to rummage in a backpack isn’t the same thing as being able to whip a notebook out of my pocket and jot something down. I need to either find jeans with bigger pockets (damn you, girl jeans!), find some way to stuff a notebook into my bra (there’s definitely a business idea waiting to happen there – easily bendable, stuffable notebooks, for any crevice of your body you may want to keep one in) or else just start walking around with a permanent marker and jot things down on my hand. But then, if they’re no good, I won’t be able to wash them off. And I’ll run out of space pretty quickly.

The real answer, of course, is to get back into a more routine writing habit. At least, that’s the answer as far as I’m concerned. Every writer has her or his own ways and means and needs. For me, writing every day for an extended period of time that is for my own purposes – not for schoolwork, in other words, and not out of a feeling of obligation to anyone but me – is the best way to make sure I use the things that float around my head all day.